“VACANT,” Aglaé Bassens’ exhibition at HESSE FLATOW, on view through December 20, explores emptiness not just as a theme but as a creative state and possibility for painting. Instead of depicting a stark void, the title invites a conceptual space—a pause, a thinning of visibility, a moment when perception becomes tentative and emotionally charged.
Throughout the exhibition, Bassens shows scenes that hover between presence and absence: quiet domestic snippets, glimpses of objects without their stories, the lingering trace of activity rather than the event itself. These paintings occupy the border between looking and sensing, offering viewers a slow, thoughtful experience that gains meaning through time rather than through explicit declaration.
Understanding the resonance of Bassens’ current work means situating it within the intertwined histories of photography and painting in contemporary art. By the mid-1990s, as Chelsea, NY, was solidifying into a global art center, photography asserted unprecedented influence. Artists such as Nan Goldin and Wolfgang Tillmans reframed the everyday through the diaristic snapshot, privileging immediacy over technical perfection. Their images, often made with 35mm or disposable cameras, drew power from their casual intimacy; they were less about composition than lived experience, less about the event than its emotional temperature.
